Should You Do Business With High Risk Computer Security Companies?

In life, we must all take a risk. Unfortunately we were not born with the ability to be able to predict the future. So we never know what is around the corner when it comes to facing the choices that we make. The one thing that we have is gut instinct and that is only accurate around 50 percent of the time. So when we make decisions, we have to use a bit of gut instinct mixed with common sense and useful general knowledge as well. That goes with when we do business as well.

When you do business with another company you are really becoming their business partner. You do business on a mutual agreement where you trust them to carry out the task that you set for them and they trust you to pay them. If everything goes according to plan then the deal is beneficial to both parties. But if something goes wrong then you both can suffer.

There are many unknown factors that can go wrong when you are talking about doing business with another company. They can decide to turn their back on the deal, someone who is key to the deal can be hurt or injured, or one of the parties may have promised more than they can deliver. But what I am focusing on in this article is what can go wrong when you do business with a company who is a high risk target when it comes to computer security.

What do I mean by high risk computer security target?

As we all know there are plenty of dangers that are on the internet. And most of these dangers are random and put together by black hat hackers. They try to find people to fall into their trap and then pounce. But in some instances that is not the case. There are times when the black hat hackers attacks are orchestrated and well planned out. They decide to choose a target and they do what they can to be able to infiltrate it. And some companies are more likely to have attacks like these against them than others. So does it pay for you to do business with a company like that?

What kinds of companies pose that sort of risk?

There are several different types of companies that black hat hackers like to go after in cases like this. The reasons why are numerous. The company can be one that has a lot of credit card transactions and the hacker feels as if they can easily get to them due to a lack of security procedure. Or the company can be the creator of a product that the black hat hackers are interested in and they want to be able to see the product first. This happens many times when it comes to video games and software companies. But the worst of all is when a company kicks the hornets’ nest.

Kicking the hornets’ nest means that the company did something to anger the black hat hacker community. It can be that the company did something unintentional to incite the hackers or they did something intentional but did not realize the fall out would be something so big. For example, the Sony Corporation recently sued several hackers for breaking into their own personal Playstation systems that they bought. For payback, the black hat hacker community decided that they were going to take down the PSN online gaming network. This meant that millions of people who paid for online access would not be able to get it through Sony.

The affect on the other businesses

So even though Sony was the one that committed the actions for the hackers to attack it, businesses that worked with Sony suffered as well. And that is the cost of doing business with someone who is a high security risk. If they are somehow affected by a hack attack or anything similar, your business will suffer as well. So you have to weigh out the risk of doing business with them. If you enter into a partnership with that company, the best thing that can happen to you if something goes wrong is that it only affects the money coming in. The worst thing that can happen to your business is if the black hat hackers decide that you need to be punished as well for doing business with them. This can hurt the people that depend on your business.

When you are doing business with someone who is a high security risk, you should measure out the risk and reward factor. Yeah, you might be able to make a lot of money by doing business with them but you could be risking a lot as well.

Lee's non-technical background allows him to write about internet security in a clear way that is understandable to both IT professionals and people just like you who need simple answers to your security questions.